


The Great Astley Experiment

by ryttu3k



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: Fluff and Crack, M/M, Rick-Rolling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 17:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7693102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryttu3k/pseuds/ryttu3k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This means war!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Astley Experiment

It starts off innocently enough.

They are talking over the Holo Caster, talking and sharing links over the instant message app - sharing videos, sharing articles, sharing the interesting things he's found over the course of the day. A few minutes into this, a Youtube link makes it in to the collection; Augustine is grinning as he hears the sound of Lysandre selecting it, and the sound of Rick Astley filling the air.

"An eighties pop song?" Lysandre says dubiously.

Augustine deflates.

"You've never heard of rickrolling?" he says petulently, then sighs. "Okay, it's this thing where you trick people into listening to Never Gonna Give You Up. And you thought it was a video about Pokemon incubation, and it was a rickroll instead."

Lysandre is silent for approximately half a minute. "But - why?" he finally says, and Augustine is fairly sure he's never heard Lysandre sound so stupefied.

"Because it's funny!"

"Mm. If you say so. May I have the actual video link, please?"

Augustine gives an exaggerated sigh, then pastes it in. "Okay, fine. But at least now you know..."

 

The next time is a week later. Augustine is editing his page on the lab website; he smiles as he links the video and types in the title as 'For Beginner Trainers'.

"Lys," he calls over his shoulder (Lysandre is settled on the sofa, his laptop on his knees, while Augustine sits at the table; it's a rare night when they're both home at the same time). "I've been doing some editing on the site - can you check the beginner trainers page? It's linked on my profile."

Lysandre makes an affirmative noise; there is the sound of typing. There are a few clicks. There is the beginning of Never Gonna Give You Up. There is Lysandre sighing.

"Hilarious," he deadpans, and the song is cut off mid-beat.

 

Augustine is bored, at work, and chatting to Lysandre over the instant messenger again. He's finished the paperwork he's not procrastinating on at the moment, he has no appointments for the afternoon, the Pokemon have all been attended to... really, there's nothing much _to_ do other than chat to his boyfriend.

 _want to go out for coffee?_ he types, fairly sure he needs caffeine before he passes out from sheer ennui.

 _Busy right now, how about dinner?_ Lysandre writes back. _There is a new place on Vernal. Let me send you a review._

The link icon appears in the chat screen; Augustine taps it absent-mindedly.

The sound of Never Gonna Give You Up fills the office.

Augustine sits in such stunned disbelief that Rick Astley makes it all the way to the chorus before he can bring himself to close the tab. And then he begins to smile.

This means war.

 

"Want to see the video from Open Day?" Augustine says brightly as he drops down beside Lysandre on the bed. "Sophie recorded me talking to the kids, and we added in lots of cute shots of the Pokemon. We're thinking of using it as promotional material."

Lysandre nods. "Is it online already?" he asks, apparently wary about Youtube links.

Augustine hides his smile. "No, I haven't uploaded it yet. Hang on, I'll get my laptop."

It's a perfectly innocent file. The file name is simply _openday.mp4_ ; the thumbnail shows a screenshot from the talk he had done in the Pokemon enclosure.

It hadn't taken much to change the video's thumbnail.

Lysandre opens the file. The song only gets a few bars in before he closes again, gives Augustine a disgruntled look, and very pointedly returns to his book.

Augustine grins.

 

Lysandre is a professional. So professional that he wouldn't dream of vandalising his own website, and especially not the blog he uses to discuss technology and its role in the environment.

Except, of course, when he adds Never Gonna Give You Up in autoplay mode to his latest entry.

"Well done," Augustine says as he tries to find the mute button, and Lysandre smirks.

 

Augustine does a talk at the university; it's about encouraging study of Pokemon biology. He has a slideshow, Lysandre is the audience, and the talk is going well.

"Now," he says as he gets to the penultimate slide, "To finish up, this is an area of Pokemon biology near and dear to both myself and my partner..."

He clicks the button to get to the last slide. The song begins. Augustine catches Lysandre's eye in the audience and winks as the students erupt into laughter.

Lysandre sighs.

 

There's a jukebox in Lysandre's cafe. Augustine drops the coin in and presses the number for it to play Voulez-Vous, Lysandre being a completely un-secret Abba fan and Augustine having accidentally been swept along for the ride.

"We're no strangers to love," sing Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, and Anni-Frid.

"Fuck," Augustine says.

 

Every morning, Lysandre reads Alexa's column about the daily happenings in Lumiose. It takes a lot of pleading and a little bit of bribery, but Augustine eventually manages to convince Alexa of his plan, and even she seems amused at the idea.

Over breakfast one morning, Augustine burying himself in his coffee and Lysandre tiredly browsing the news on his paper, the sound of Rick Astley blares out loud enough to startle Murkrow into flight.

"Sorry," Augustine says to the bird, and offers him his toast in apology. Murkrow takes the toast and makes an almost human-sounding harrumph.

Lysandre sighs and closes the page.

 

Did Lysandre really program _every single song_ Augustine liked to play Never Gonna Give You Up instead of the actual song named on the jukebox?

Yes. Yes he did.

Bastard.

 

Augustine doesn't actually see the results of the next one - he's being interviewed on the radio, and all he can really see are the show's host and the producer, both of whom are in on the joke.

Still, even if he didn't get Lysandre specifically, Lysandre is going to have to agree that rickrolling half of Kalos is a pretty good attempt.

 

"I know you like this whole silly rickroll thing," Lysandre says tiredly, "But I found an article about how it's actually pretty problematic for a lot of reasons. I know _you_ don't mean it to be damaging, but, well..."

He shows Augustine the blog entry, and Augustine scans the beginning paragraphs with a frown. "Okay, they might have a point," he concedes, and clicks the link that says _Read more_.

It is not, in fact, an article.

Lysandre shrugs, hands spread wide as if to say, "What were you expecting?", and takes back his tablet.

 

It takes Augustine a full hour to arrange the article so that the first word of each line reads out the desired lyrics.

It takes Lysandre three reads to find it, and he only does because Augustine finally sighs and points it out.

"Not your best," Lysandre says apologetically, and Augustine grudgingly agrees.

 

"Okay!" Lysandre finally says, "Okay! Enough! Here is a link, it's a rickroll, just click it and put us both out of our misery!"

Augustine clicks the link with a grin, and Darude's Sandstorm blares out of the speakers.

"Oh," he says, and because there's nothing really else he can do, he laughs.

 

It's a masterpiece.

Working side by side with the lab's resident mechanic, Meyer, Augustine meticulously rigs the entire apartment. When the door opens, the song plays. When the light is switched on, the song plays. When the fridge is opened, the song plays. When someone sits down on the sofa, a pressure pad activates, and the song plays.

Five minutes after Lysandre gets home, there are at least seven different versions playing at different points in the song, and Augustine has locked himself in the bathroom, laughing hard enough that he's wheezing a little, while Lysandre tries to find every source of the song in the place.

At half past five in the morning, Lysandre wakes up and stumbles to the kitchen for coffee. Augustine hears the swear word and start of the song - ahh, that would be the coffee tin, then - and smiles, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.

 

Lysandre sends out a recording to the entire Holo Caster network. Augustine grins and pointedly ignores it. He's not getting tricked this time.

 

It turns out it's not a rickroll.

 

Geosenge is in ruins. Serena and the other kids are heroes with a burden well beyond their years on their shoulders. Lysandre, body broken, is in hospital, in intensive care, under strict armed guard.

Augustine doesn't have time to despair. He's busy, busy trying to find an answer for Lysandre's actions, busy trying to find a suitable way to congratulate the literal children who saved the world, busy trying to ask himself why he never saw it, why he never noticed, why he was so damn oblivious to Lysandre falling apart.

He saves his tears for sleepless nights in a bed that feels too big without Lysandre in it as well, where no one can see him fall apart himself, hugging his pillow to his chest and breathing in its scent in desperate, ragged, sobbing gulps of air.

Lysandre finally wakes up about a week after the Incident (he can't bring himself to say any more, he can't bring himself to think of it as 'the time Lysandre tried to destroy the world'). Augustine lingers in the hospital, trying to unravel his racing thoughts, to soothe his heartache and find the words he's going to say to Lysandre.

He has made such a dreadful, dreadful mistake. But he's healing, isn't he? He's healing, the doctors say, he was unwell, he's going to get treatment, he's going to be okay.

He's going to be okay, and Augustine will stay with him.

Augustine reaches for Lysandre's hand and holds it like a lifeline, staring at their intertwined fingers, at the desperate misery on his face. Lysandre apologises and apologises again, and each time, Augustine forgives him.

"I've done such terrible things," Lysandre says, and his voice is hollow. "I don't understand. How can you bear to stay with me?"

Augustine squeezes his hand, and the words come to his lips fluently, like he knew all along what needs to be said. "Because," he says, and takes a steadying breath. "Because, I'm never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and -"

Lysandre throws a pillow at him.

And Augustine smiles.


End file.
